I beat myself up a lot for how I handle parenting. I am never good enough.

My mothering needs so much improving. I still yell when I am frustrated. I know I shouldn’t. I blame my child for acts that aren’t truly his fault. I go to bed feeling badly that my five-year-old cannot yet ride a bike without training wheels, cannot tie his shoes, still sleeps in a pull-up.

I am just not good enough.

Whenever I think of my sweet angel in Heaven, I have a physical response. My stomach lunges as if I were riding a roller coaster and just dropped from the apex of the biggest curve. My skin gets hot, as if I am sunburned and craving aloe and ice. Tears flood my eyes, and I gently dab them with my shirt before anyone can see. I am so tied to him, emotionally, physically, spiritually, that even a brief thought evokes a full-body response.

I hear people joke, even my husband the other day, after my cousin babysat on a work day where we had no daycare. “Well, he’s still alive!” he exclaimed through text when he arrived home. Yes, but our other son isn’t.

I hear it all the time. ‘My kid’s still alive, we must be doing something right!’

Our son didn’t survive. Does that mean we did something wrong? Did we fail as parents?

And now, we are doing it all over again. What will this result be? I cannot afford to fail again. But I always feel like I will.